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Wednesday, February 15, 2017

JEHOVAH IS NOT GOD.

Have you ever been approached by a group called JWs or Jehovah Witnesses? They are almost everywhere and they are very zealous people who thinks GOD's true name is JEHOVAH. But the truth is way too far behind and the name Jehovah is not God's name but rather a transliteration or pronounciation. JEHOVAH is not GOD's name.

Did you know that "the name Jehovah was invented first time in the Middle Ages primal!

For all the world the information is testable, where the name Jehovah comes from, available on the Internet. On Wikipedia under the search word Jehovah, we find the following information:

The name Jehovah already occurs repeatedly in the 13th Century in the Latin form of Jehovah. The Spanish monk Raymond Mantini, translated about 1270 different parts of the Bible from the Hebrew. In his manuscripts is on the right side the Hebrew text and on the left the Latin with Iehovah.

Cardinal Nikolaus of Kues used the Tetragrammaton vocalized as Jehovah in several of his works, 1428, in his Sermon In Principio Erat Verbum.

Petrus Galatinus published in the year 1518 his work "De Arcnis catholicae veritatis".

As William Tyndale, translated the Pentateuch 1530, he transferred the Tetragrammaton also by using the word Jehovah." 0



"Question: "What is YHWH? What is the tetragrammaton?"

Answer: The ancient Hebrew language that the Old Testament was written in did not have vowels in its alphabet. In written form, ancient Hebrew was a consonant-only language. In the original Hebrew, God’s name transliterates to YHWH (sometimes written in the older style as YHVH). This is known as the tetragrammaton (meaning “four letters”). Because of the lack of vowels, Bible scholars debate how the tetragrammaton YHWH was pronounced.

The tetragrammaton consists of four Hebrew letters: yodh, he, waw, and then he repeated. Some versions of the Bible translate the tetragrammaton as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah”; most translate it as “LORD” (all capital letters).

Contrary to what some Christians believe (and at least one cult), Jehovah is not the Divine Name revealed to Israel. The name Jehovah is a product of mixing different words and different alphabets of different languages. Due to a fear of accidentally taking God’s name in vain (Leviticus 24:16), the Jews basically quit saying it out loud altogether. Instead, when reading Scripture aloud, the Jews substituted the tetragrammaton YHWH with the word Adonai (“Lord”). Even in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), the translators substituted Kurios (“Lord”) for the Divine Name. Eventually, the vowels from Adonai (“Lord”) or Elohim (“God”) found their way in between the consonants of YHWH, thus forming YaHWeH. But this interpolation of vowels does not mean that was how God’s name was originally pronounced. In fact, we aren’t entirely sure if YHWH should have two syllables or three.

Any number of vowel sounds can be inserted within YHWH, and Jewish scholars are as uncertain of the real pronunciation as Christian scholars are. Jehovah is actually a much later (probably 16th-century) variant. The word Jehovah comes from a three-syllable version of YHWH, YeHoWeH. The Y was replaced with a J (although Hebrew does not even have a J sound) and the W with a V, plus the extra vowel in the middle, resulting in JeHoVaH. These vowels are the abbreviated forms of the imperfect tense, the participial form, and the perfect tense of the Hebrew being verb (English is)—thus the meaning of Jehovah could be understood as “He who will be, is, and has been.”

So, what is God’s Name, and what does it mean? The most likely choice for how the tetragrammaton was pronounced is “YAH-way,” “YAH-weh,” or something similar. The name Yahweh refers to God’s self-existence. Yahweh is linked to how God described Himself in Exodus 3:14, “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.”’” God’s name is a reflection of His being. God is the only self-existent or self-sufficient Being. Only God has life in and of Himself. That is the essential meaning of the tetragrammaton, YHWH." 1

Where did the name “Jehovah” come from?

"“Jehovah” is a mispronunciation of the Hebrew name of God, resulting from a confusion over what vowels were to be included when saying the name.

The Hebrew name of God is יהוה (YHWH). This was revealed to Moses by God in Exodus 6:2-3Open in Logos Bible Software (if available). In Hebrew, there are usually no vowels inserted and it is up to the reader to insert the vowels at the time of reading. Most scholars think the vowels in the name of God are A and E making Yahweh.

Several centuries before Jesus, Jews stopped pronouncing the name of God as it was too sacred, and they started to substitute the word Adonay (Lord) instead whenever they came across the word Yahweh. Then later editions of the Hebrew scriptures added vowel pointings to guide readers. For YHWH, the vowels for Adonai were added to remind readers to read “Adonai” and not “Yahweh”. This actually made a non-word “Yehowah”.

The Hebrew letter “W” (waw) is now pronounced more like a “V” in modern Hebrew, and so is often transliterated as a V instead of a W. The Hebrew letter “Y” (yod) is often historically transliterated as a “J” due to its pronunciation in late Latin. Consequently, we get the name “Jehovah” although that was never the original word and probably does not sound anything like the Hebrew name of God."2

"Question: "Is Jehovah the true name of God?"

Answer: In the Hebrew Scriptures, the name of God is recorded as YHWH. So, where did the name “Jehovah” come from? Ancient Hebrew did not use vowels in its written form. The vowels were pronounced in spoken Hebrew but were not recorded in written Hebrew. The appropriate vowel sounds of words were passed down orally. As a result, when ancient Hebrew is studied, scholars and linguists often do not know with absolute confidence how certain Hebrew words were pronounced.

This particularly becomes an issue when studying the Hebrew name of God, written in the Hebrew Scriptures as YHWH, also known as the tetragrammaton. Despite much study and debate, it is still not universally agreed upon how the Hebrew name for God YHWH was pronounced. Some prefer “Yahweh” (YAH-way); others prefer “Yehowah” or “Yahuweh”; still others argue for “Jehovah.”

As you can see, virtually everything is up for debate. Should YHWH be pronounced with three syllables or two? Should the vowels be borrowed from Elohim or Adonai? Should the W be pronounced with more of a W sound or more of a V sound? It is not the purpose of this article to settle the debate. Rather, it is the purpose of this article to discuss the use of “Jehovah.”

The vast majority of Jewish and Christian biblical scholars and linguists do not believe “Jehovah” to be the proper pronunciation of YHWH. There was no true J sound in ancient Hebrew. Even the Hebrew letter vav, which is transliterated as the W in YHWH is said to have originally had a pronunciation closer to W than the V of Jehovah. Jehovah is essentially a Germanic pronunciation of the Latinized transliteration of the Hebrew YHWH. It is the letters of the tetragrammaton, Latinized into JHVH, with vowels inserted. “Yahweh” or “Yehowah” is far more likely to be the correct pronunciation.

The form Jehovah, though, is very commonly used. It is used in the King James Version of the Bible (Genesis 22:14; Exodus 6:3; 17:15; Judges 6:24; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4). It is also used, and strenuously promoted by, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Jehovah’s Witnesses emphasize the use of Jehovah to the extent that any other name or title for God is viewed as borderline idolatry or outright heresy.



With all of that said, it is not crucial to the Christian faith for the proper pronunciation of YHWH to be known. Both the Old and New Testaments, inspired by God, use generic terms for “God” and “Lord,” including El, Elohim, and Adonai (Hebrew); and Theos and Kurios (Greek). If the authors of Scripture, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, were allowed to use these terms, it is not wrong for us to refer to Him as “God” or “Lord,” either.

In conclusion, it is highly unlikely that “Jehovah” is the correct pronunciation of YHWH. Further, it is far more important to know God through faith in Jesus Christ, than it is to know the correct pronunciation of His name in Hebrew."3


Footnotes:
0 - extracted from http://www.antichrist-watchtower.org/jehovah-primal-invented-in-medieval.xhtml
1 - https://www.gotquestions.org/YHWH-tetragrammaton.html
2-http://bibleq.net/answer/87/
3- https://www.gotquestions.org/Jehovah.html
 
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